Which was where we were.
“You. Little. Bitch.”
I swallowed hard. “Sire?”
He thrust the letter out at me. “You made him turn against me.”
“Who, sire?”
“Odom!” he roared, walking up the stairs toward me. “Odom, you little bitch. He was my chief guard in my dungeons before you were even a thought in your mother’s head. He helped me conquer this place. He helped me destroy what remained of the druids on this side of the Spine. He recruited my armies, my knights, my court—”
He froze on the top step. His eyes locked on my throat.
“Who?”
“Sire?” I couldn’t stop my eyes from rounding in fear.
“Who bit you?”
“Sire, I don’t—”
Savion was in front of me as I blinked. His hand snaked behind my neck and yanked me forward, forcing my head back. My neck was exposed.
“Someone bit you. Who bit you?”
Could he really see the marks from three days before?
“It was the Blood Rite,” he growled. “You were not to be touched. Not by anyone!”
“Crazy, blood-mad vampires aren’t exactly rational, your majesty,” I said.
“So you were bitten! Did you know that unwelcomed and uninvited bites warrant death?”
I didn’t say anything.
He leaned in and sniffed where Aiko had put his teeth. Savion’s eyes snapped to mine.
“You didn’t struggle. That’s why I almost didn’t see them. You didn’t struggle at all.”
He threw me back into Billan and turned to the rest of the room. “She wasmine!No one was to touch her but me!”
That was a directive I never heard him utter to anyone.
“Don’t move, girl,” Billan whispered.
I wasn’t about to.
“Who! Who was it she gave her blood to? It was mine alone to take!”
No one spoke. Everyone just stood quietly, not moving, not answering.
He whirled back to me and stalked forward, yanking me out of Billan’s grasp. “You want to give your blood to random men? You want to share with people I haven’t given permission to?” His hand dug into my hair, and he twisted my head sideways, hard, exposing my neck—my vein—to everyone in the room.
He was probably about to kill me, so I threw caution and self-preservation out the window.
“It’s my blood. I am the only person who can give it or withhold it.”
The king growled.
